Got Your Back
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: SHIELD agents are required to complete mandatory psych evaluations every three months. Natasha has ways of coping with this that aren't dictated by herself.


It's nothing more than a two-hour appointment in her schedule, but it's marked with a red alert alarm by default when it's added to her calendar. The team Handler's issue them to each agent when they're scheduled and it appears directly into their appointment list, marked with order of priority depending on the time. The colour of the appointment block is set depending on how high the punishment will be if the appointment is missed. The time is set with priority on which agents are categorised as 'difficult' and which are considered 'standard'. Standard appointments occur later in the day, when agents are trusted to make arrangements with their usual daily itinerary.

Natasha's is at 0730. Monday morning. Red category. Six reminder alarms at ten minute intervals before the appointment to ensure the agent arrives on time.

When her phone alerts her to the new appointment precisely two days before the appointment she ignores it. Thirty seconds later the same red alert flashes on Barton's phone and he gives her a sideways glance before shoving his phone back into his pocket with a small exhale. His appointment is always right after hers. They're both considered flight risks for these.

Mandatory psych evaluations.

They don't speak it about it. Ever.

They're given the appointments with two weeks notice to ensure that they're back from any possible long-term operations. Their Handler arranges them when they're back in the country and, emergencies permitting, keep them in the country long enough for the appointment to be kept.

But with Natasha, it's not just a mandatory appointment. It's not a quarterly check-up to make sure that her recent missions haven't left any lingering bad thoughts in her mind - they've long since stopped keeping track of her conscience. SHEILD are fully aware of her reasons for her work, and she doesn't mind what assignments she's sent on as long as she's erasing the red from her ledger. But they're still trying to find the red. They'll sit down with her every three months and try to pick away at it a bit more than last time.

It's always the same, they'll try to identify her current missions and when she shows more aptitude in certain areas than others they'll try to more innocently relate that to her previous training. When Barton first bought her into SHIELD she had given them enough information about the Red Room's operations to prove herself loyal to them, but she'd been very shady when it came to information about herself. She'd never given them any information regarding her specific training, her hits, her missions, her failures.

Only one living person knew that.

Three days before her appointment, when her skin starts to itch at the thought, the information she'll never give them crawling into the far away spaces in her mind, there's a sparring session that almost gets out of hand with a rookie. She's supposed to be training him but it's getting out of hand quickly and she never even realises until suddenly Barton's leaning against the ropes of the sparring ring, sweat dripping from his ruffled hair and heaving shoulders from his own workout, challenging her to a 'real' fight.

Hours later, they're still at it, matching each other move for move until they reach a mutual end point. They lay down on the sparring mat, side by side with a few inches between them, muscles twitching with their prolonged workout, pleasant burns of stretched muscles and what promised to be a good few bruises, breathing hard and casually passing a water bottle between them.

Two days before, she's in Coulson's office requesting - not begging, never begging - overseas assignments, because she needs to get out of the country, she needs to be doing something more than just waiting on paperwork, and really, what is he doing assigning Doyle to the potentially non-human child-trafficking ring in Mongolia anyway? But she's not given anything other than a far too polite "you'll be given your assignment in due time, Agent Romanoff" and she's sent on her way.

When she gets back to her room, there's crossword puzzle books in four different languages spread out across her bed. In the middle of the night when she's finished them all, she takes care to complete the doodles that 'someone' had already started in the margins of the unfinished English puzzle book, turning a badly proportioned bird into a nested creation between the puzzle and the word clues.

The whole day before her stomach is churning. It's not in nerves, but frustration. She skips the usual breakfast time on the helicarrier and allows herself that additional thirty-minutes in the gym, extending her usual training session until after midday until once again her muscles were burning in protest, but she wouldn't stop. At 1800 hours she's revoked access to the weapons room where she had intended to shoot out her anger, she recognises the early signs of Coulson's 12-hour shepherding of her, slowing boxing her in until she had no means of avoiding her psych evaluation. He's become very good at that over the years.

When she gives up attempting to break into the weapons room, she retires back to her room. Barton's sat on her bed with three bags of something that smells delicious. A small helping of kurma from the Indian resturant they found three years ago, a chicken chow-mein from a Chinese take-out joint they go to in the dead of night, and a home-made slice of bakewell pie from the diner that caters almost exclusively to SHIELD agents (not that the owners knew this). Her three favourites. He's already taking noodles out of the chow-mein, but they eat in silence from the containers until all three are empty. The only words spoken is soft irritation as they fight over the drizzled icing on the top of the pie. Natasha wins, as always.

The next morning she wakes before the sun rises and showers, wasting no time with any attempts she could use to escape the day. She has thirty minutes before her appointment and that's just enough time to go and get coffee. She needs caffeine before she has her soul bared to a perfect stranger.

It's not a stranger. Dr. Hadway has been with SHIELD longer than she has. She's never seen another psychologist. She's never had a choice.

She gets dressed in more civilian clothes - though still with her SHIELD proficiency - and opens the door to her room to find that she has no reason to leave. She's been known to cause a few fears on the mornings of her psych evaluations when she has visited the cafeteria area. New agents are advised by their Handlers to avoid the area, but there are always a few brave souls who feel like they can survive the Black Widow's bad mood.

But outside of her residential quarters is a take-away coffee mug from the nearby diner and a paper bag filled with one of their well-prepared breakfast pastries - two luxuries she doesn't usually afford herself: fancy coffee and continental breakfast. She retreats back to her room with them, finishing them both in due time before her final alarm goes off and she's expected at her appointment.

The halls are empty at the time of the morning. Agents are either attempting breakfast before training or already in the gym, the rest have arrived back from missions and are enjoying their downtime and rest. Except Barton. Barton's sneaking through some of the crossing points in the halls. There's absolutely no reason why he should be taking that route, but three times they 'accidentally' bump into her with no words, just a small 'excuse me' as he knocks into her and his cheeky grin as he walks away.

When she takes her seat in front of Dr. Hadway, the tension hits her shoulders again. That is, until Dr. Hadway starts questioning the honeypot tactics of her mission three weeks previously and whether she had any remaining questions about her ex-target, and she notices the air vent behind Dr. Hadway is shifted slightly, and that the air conditioning unit is quieter than usual, as if something's blocking the vent.

She knows that scent of vanilla latte anywhere.

"Agent Romanoff?"

Her attention snaps back to Dr. Hadway.

"You didn't answer my question. The agent in charge of your extraction on your last mission was Agent Barton, yes?"

She shares a small smirk with herself, one that even a psychologist couldn't understand.

"Well, Agent Barton does seem to turn up just about anywhere, doesn't he?"


End file.
